Hello from a newspaper guy in Texas

Hi, I work for a chain of newspapers in the NE Houston area as an ad salesman, IT director, digital paginator and columnist (you wear many hats when your parents own the paper

We are adding on a second business, specifically an advertising firm, that will specialize in selling advertising to school districts. We have a huge contract pending approval from the local school board, and we should have an exclusive 5-year contract in two weeks.

The majority of what they want us to do is sell advertising on the sides of the buses. With the impending need to print LOTS of these full color vinyl banners, I figured it would be far cheaper for us to buy our own printer instead of paying the local guys the $80 they want for a 24"X8' vinyl sign. We expect to be printing 400-500 a year, and I think it would be a shame to send that $32,000-$40,000 to a business when we can probably do it for half that much.

This looks like a great forum with lots of useful information and some mature people.

Thanks!

~Wilson

PS: I think I'm going to be applying all of these signs. Yippee

Edit: edited out the word that was mis-interpreted because of my lack of clarity.

 

We throw our paper for free

45,000 copies and it was 28 pages this week. All local news, no filler press release stuff typically.

We also provide the entire version in PDF form online so if our non-local customers want to print it out they can do it easily.

Y'all can check out our website at www.ourTribune.com

 

Woah, I wasn't insulting the trade. I am a graphic designer, just in a different way.

 

Did you see where I said I will be printing 400-500 a year? And that's just at our current level without any expansion. I already have a graphic design staff, I already have stations with legit copies of CS2, etc. etc. and I just need to print the banners and apply them.

 

I was not inferring that the sign industry as a whole were knuckleheads, just that the local shop that I deal with tends to not provide the best service, but they provide some of the better pricing, so in effect it's better on my end to just put up with it.

For example, I needed a poster printed, 2'X3'. I provided them with an InDesign and a PDF file on Monday. They quoted me $85 which I think is ridiculous even considering they are putting it on foamcore for me, and they said Friday pickup would be no problem. Well, it wasn't ready, the lady took a 3 hour lunch break on Wed and Thursday and now I have to scramble to get a display to somebody by 10am on Monday.

I'm sorry guys for getting off on such a rough start with you guys, I have nothing but the best intentions!

 

Sorry, an adhesive vinyl that is in a banner shape.

I re-read the first post, and I can definitely see that I didn't word it correctly.

I'm looking at doing something where I print a color vinyl sign that is adhesive and that I can apply to the side of a bus myself.

 

I know very little, and I've enjoyed very much reading and researching on the forum. I'm currently in a researching stage on acquiring our own printing hardware, and after the limited research I've done I've found that it would probably be worth our effort to print stuff ourself.

 

Let me re-iterate again that I meant nothing towards the industry as a whole. I'm active on some car forums online, and we always complain about the local mechanics at dealerships and refer to them as the local knuckleheads. I'm not insulting mechanics as a whole, just the poor job that is exemplified by the locals.

I meant no ill-will towards the industry and SPECIFICALLY not towards the forum. I apologize and I'm sorry

PS: You can extinguish the torches, no lynching today please